Things Mike Singleton Has Taught Me So Far

In The Beginning . . .

When I first began using Vocal a couple of years ago, I had no idea what I was doing. I threw a few stories and poems up on here sporadically as official contest entries, read a small number of stories by other authors, rarely commented on anything, and basically floundered around purposelessly. Then, relatively recently, I discovered Mike Singleton.

To be fair, he found me. I'm not sure how or why, but he commented on one of my stories. He was supportive, as almost everyone on Vocal seems to be, but more than that, he was helpful! Not just to me, but to everyone. Any time he saw someone struggling, he offered to help. And I'm not sure he knows how much we all appreciate this help. Therefore, I've decided to compile a small list of things he has taught me. In addition to recognizing him for his assistance, I feel like these are all things other floundering Vocalists might benefit from learning if they don't already know. So here we go:

Things Mike Singleton Has Taught Me So Far

• Connect your Stripe account properly, or you can’t receive tips. Turns out you can’t win contests either. I believe this was the first thing Mike taught me. He had written an article about tipping other Vocalists, and I had casually commented that I did not think I had ever received a tip and wasn't really sure how they worked or something to that effect. He then apparently went to my account and tried to tip me, only to find that I didn't have a tip button. Between his instructions and my button pushing, we discovered that I did have tips enabled, so that wasn't the problem. He suggested (I believe) that it might have something to do with my Stripe account. I checked into it and, sure enough, even though I had initially created a Stripe account, it had become disconnected due to some update in Stripe's terms and conditions that I had missed acknowledging. I acknowledged it and voila! I was once again able to receive tips. He sent me the first Vocal tip that day that I ever received, and I won't forget it. In my investigations, I also discovered that you can't win official contests if you don't have Stripe connected either, so that was an incredibly significant discovery in more than one way.
• How to embed a link or picture into your Vocal post. When you're writing a story, there's a little plus sign that appears on the left side of your writing area when you go to a new line (Note: sometimes you have to hit Enter twice to get the embed to show up where you want it to. Also, you have to click the line as though you're going to write in it to make the plus sign pop up). If you click that, you can choose "Embed link." At that point, you will simply copy the link from the page you would like to embed and post it into the bar that appears under the "Embed link" area. Then hit Enter. Voila! Like magic, a link to the page will embed into your page!

• How to add an emoji into your comments on others’ pieces. He taught me this only the other day, and I have used it multiple times since. One caveat: It only seems to work if you're on a computer. I've tried to figure out how to do it on a phone (which is what I often access Vocal through), but I have yet to figure out how. He says that his phone has an emoji button on the keyboard, but mine does not.
• About the existence of the Vocal Social Society and Great Incantations: A group dedicated to Writing Challenges on Facebook. These groups are wonderful for Vocal writers. They're filled with other supportive Vocalists who can assist you in your Vocal writing journey. Mike is very active in them and is as helpful there as he is here. (My ignorance about properly embedding has reared its ugly head again. For whatever reason, I cannot seem to embed the links into this bullet point list, even though I was able to embed the link for the challenge list below. It's a conundrum. Perhaps, someday, I will perfect this magic. That day is not today. Unfortunately, the links will have to suffice for the moment. I also posted the embeds below the bullet point list.)
• About a convenient Facebook post that he makes every month to gather together all of the currently running unofficial Vocal contests. This monthly post has been invaluable. As indicated by the first sentence of this bullet point, every month, Mike makes a new post about the unofficial contests on Vocal. Now, instead of simply browsing and hoping to run across them, or trying a mostly futile search to find them yourself, you can simply go to this post. He may not be able to find all of the contests every month, but he certainly finds a good number of them (and if you know of one not on the list, please let him know!). It's amazing. Here's the one for this month:

• When you've finished reading a piece on Vocal, be sure to leave a comment. If you don't comment, the author doesn't know you read it. They can see their stats and know that people are reading their stories, but not who is reading them. They get notifications when people heart their stories, but when an author is prolific and many people are hearting their works, it can be easy to miss those notifications. And while it isn't necessary for Vocal authors to know that you've read their piece, it's rather nice. Leaving a comment (even if it's just a thumbs up) gives them a good feeling, even if you don't have much to say about the piece in question.
• The Steve McQueen who is an actor is not the same Steve McQueen who is a director. I learned this yesterday from one of Mike's stories. He was talking about Steve McQueen (the actor) and Steve McQueen (the director) and I was like, "Multiple personalities, huh? Who knew?" I made the comment that I was unfamiliar with Steve McQueen's work as a director, and in addition to telling me the most famous work Steve McQueen has directed, he also sent me his IMDB link. I clicked and . . . yeah, different guys. Turns out I've never seen anything directed by Steve McQueen, and I apparently didn't even know who he was. Thanks, Mike, for enlightening me yet again.

I’m sure there are more things that Mike has taught me, but these are the ones that leap to mind at the moment. I hope they've been as helpful to you as they have been to me.

To see some of his works, go to his page or check these stories out:

Thanks for reading!

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed the read. I'd love to hear what you think, so please feel free to leave a comment, click the heart, and subscribe!